Federal officials were repeatedly warned in the months before the 11 September 2001 terror attacks that Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida were planning aircraft hijackings and suicide attacks, according to a new report that the Bush administration has been suppressing.
Critics say the new information undermines the government's claim that intelligence about al-Qa'ida's ambitions was "historical" in nature. 
A newly-released memo warned the White House at the start of the Bush administration that al Qaeda represented a threat throughout the Islamic world, a warning that critics said went unheeded by President Bush until the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The memo dated Jan. 25, 2001 was an essential feature of last year's hearings into intelligence failures. A copy of the document was posted on the National Security Archive Web site at http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm on Feb. 10, 2005. Page one of the three-page memo is shown. Click on the image to open the 3-page memo as a .pdf file.
The independent commission investigating the attacks on New York and Washington concluded that while officials at the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) did receive warnings, they were "lulled into a false sense of security". As a result, "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures".
The report, withheld from the public for months, says the FAA was primarily focused on the likelihood of an incident overseas. However, in spring 2001, it warned US airports that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable".
No comments:
Post a Comment